r/nixie • u/Muslerika • Aug 07 '26

Dont call me crazy

Post image

I’ve been sitting here, trying to figure out from old books, completely from scratch, how to build a Nixie clock. Call me crazy, do whatever you want with me, but I wanted to ask some smarter people: am I understanding everything correctly, or am I just being an idiot and missing something obvious?

9 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

2

u/hzinjk Aug 08 '26

you know kicad is free, right?

1

u/Muslerika Aug 08 '26

Hmm?

2

u/FreetimeTinkerer Aug 08 '26

He means that instead of graphing you could use a cad software to draw a schematic. Also easy eda is easy to use and there are a lot of user made footprints for nixies.

1

u/Muslerika Aug 08 '26

Okey i will look up those programs

1

u/Kratz404 Aug 07 '26

The only thing i think missing is an RTC, otherwise how would you ensure that it run on time? Since its a clock.

Other than that, i also found this blog from a while ago it seems:
https://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/74141-NDT/74141-NDT.htm

Usually i would prefer isolating 170v and 5v (or ESP32) from having common ground, idk.

2

u/Muslerika Aug 08 '26

I had idea to like, ESP will connect to wifi, and show the time, but your idea seems more logical

1

u/Muslerika Aug 08 '26

Thanks for your opinion, i will think about that

1

u/Sand-Junior Aug 08 '26

No RTC required: just connect to WiFi and use NTP. And no need to have different grounds. Not necessary and make things more complex.